A Sorcerer’s Journey

To Grimm’s surprise, what awaited him in the monster’s belly was not a foul-smelling pool of extremely corrosive digestive fluid.

In fact, the interior space within the monster’s body was spacious and empty. Apart from being slightly moist, the conditions were relatively stable. For the moment, Grimm did not feel any external movement so it indicated that the monster was remaining stationary.

Being caught in this situation, Grimm could not help but think back on his encounter with the Great Bloodfalls Lavawyvern back at the Shadow Enigmatic World.

Of course, the monster whose belly Grimm was held captive in, was in no way comparable to the Lavawyvern, which was at least one level higher than this one. From his perception alone, Grimm could tell that this monster was just another unidentified wild creature.

Perhaps its perception ability was malfunctioning. This guy actually had the audacity to swallow a lethal Level-2 lifeform into its body whole.

It was basically begging for its death.

Grimm’s body was still powerless. After contemplating for a while, he decided to rest inside the cozy body of this beast. When he had regained his strength, he would break out from its body and find the World Node.

Holding the Sabbatic Goat Staff in his embrace, Grimm leaned against the interior of the monster’s body and rested his eyes, falling into a trance-like state.

A while later.

Grimm’s eyes shot open. It turned out, yet another victim had fallen into this monster’s trap of doom. This time, it was a two meter large ball-shaped creature.

Covering its round body was a layer of yellow desert sand, serving as a camouflage to hide itself from potential predators. At the same time, this layer of sand was an essential protective layer against low-level creatures.

This foreign world creature wailed out in despair, all the while continuously headbutting the walls of the monster’s belly. “Dong, dong, dong” echoed through the chamber but no response was given by the monster.

Its efforts were all in vain. If creatures were to indeed escape easily from the monster’s belly, then this monster would have been a failed species and would not even exist here anymore. They would have starved into extinction eons ago.

This desperate creature seemed to have acknowledged its hopelessness as it called out twice in Grimm’s direction and laid down motionlessly on the floor, awaiting its impending death.

Grimm slowly closed his eyes again.

It was just another low-level lifeform with an above average intelligence. Grimm did not bother to waste his effort and time to preserve it as a specimen and instead, opted to ignore it.

Yet another moment later, a group of prehistoric squirrel-like creatures slid into the chasm, screeching hysterically while they did so.

These little guys were attempting to escape from where they came from but Grimm knew, this was an impossible task. After a brief initial struggle, these fellas gave up the fight and surrounded a big, yellow squirrel creature. Together, they created a ball of fluffy fur that chirped quietly, perhaps to comfort each other in their final moments together.

And so, one after another, creatures would fall prey to the monster and slide into the prison that was its belly. Like Grimm, they had all “joined the party” against their will. Though, they were not ushered in optimistically with an eager smile, nor was the party fun in any way.

Anyhow, the digestion method of this monster was different from how most creatures would digest their food.

In the eyes of the other creatures that were swallowed up alive by the monster, Grimm was a strange, alien creature. Perhaps, due to the ominous vibe emanating from him, none of the creatures were willing to approach him.

Slowly, his mind dived deep into a meditative state. As time passed by unconsciously, his body too, constantly repaired itself.

Abruptly, Grimm was stirred from his trance by an evil aura.

Opening his eyes, Grimm found that he was surrounded by a myriad of small creatures, all of different species. In front of him however, was a three-tailed black scorpion crawling towards him with a sinister look in its eyes. They were cold and filled with bloodlust. It swung its pincers around, a gesture of threat, as it chewed on a slimy piece of brain matter from one of the little squirrel-like creatures.

‘Thud!’

Suddenly, Grimm’s Sabbatic Goat Staff warped into a phantom streak and dealt a shattering blow to the three-tailed scorpion’s own brain for disrupting his recovery process. The pair of eyes underneath the Mask of Truth was much colder and projected a look of annoyance at the intruder.

The unexpected shift in events shocked the crowd of small creatures who took shelter around Grimm.

After a moment of pin-drop silence, these small critters scurried away from Grimm in every direction. Not a single one of them dared to stay on any longer by the side of this ferocious alien that was Grimm.

After his negative emotions subsided, Grimm prepared his mind for yet another round of meditation but this was interrupted by a sudden pang of hunger.

On Mount Serpentine, one’s perception of time passed by in different rates due to an unequal amount of distortion as compared to the outer world. With Grimm’s discovery that he could cast sorcery spells by lending the strength of the Awakening Ray, he now had access to the food reserves stored in the Dimensional Gap. And thus, he no longer needed to live off scavenging the rotting bodies of the creatures on Mount Serpentine.

After all, in that environment, unless Grimm drank from the Spring of Serpentine, using the Blood of the Tainted Eye as an energy source, he would have to keep eating in order to maintain the Endless World’s energy cycle.

As for now, Grimm had exhausted his food supplies in the Dimensional Gap. This was one of the reasons why he had decided to stop collecting the Blood of the Tainted Eye.

Grimm stood up and walked towards the three-tailed black scorpion.

The scorpion’s brain had been turned into mush by the impact from Grimm’s magic staff. After a moment of thought, he had made his choice. Grimm then proceeded to tear off one of the claws from the scorpion’s body.

Judging from the white tender meat underneath the outer shell, it seemed that the meat’s quality was top notch.

Just then, Grimm’s brows furrowed. A purple-colored parasite similar to an earthworm wriggled out from the mouth-watering flesh.

It was a subjective emotion a typical human being would experience, like the feeling of disgust that had long been separated from Grimm’s psyche during his apprenticeship period.

The reason for Grimm’s displeasure was that it would take more time to prepare two dishes, rather than one. It was a waste of time to him.

A waste of time. And the other, the fuss that would arise from making two separate dishes out of the scorpion’s meat and the parasitic worm. Sorcerers were indeed one of the most mysterious creatures to roam the world.

A ball of flame started burning in Grimm’s hands. The scorpion meat was slowly being grilled above the small flame at a relatively low temperature, perhaps to retain its juiciness.

Over time, multiple purple-colored parasitic worms crawled out from the scorpion’s meat. Collecting these delicious morsels, Grimm made the call to turn these worms into a pot of soup.

Of course, how could Grimm ever forget to put in his favorite blend of spices, pepper being one of them, into the soup.

Fu…

After the feast was finally prepared, Grimm tucked all the utensils back into the Dimensional Gap. His eyes glanced at the foreign world critters who were all shaking with fear. Ignoring them, he shut his eyes and continued meditating.

On one hand, Grimm hoped to recover his strength as soon as possible. But on the other hand, he was extremely interested in this giant monster’s digestive system and how it worked as opposed to collecting specimens, which was his usual task.

It did not seem to mind the creatures killing one another inside its body.

After all, no matter how they slugged it out, the amount of food within its belly remained unchanged. Perhaps, by allowing them to tear each other apart, it would help quicken its process of digestion?

Time flew by.

Grimm was once again rustled from his trance. This time, he was awakened by the screams of the creatures trapped in the monster’s body. His eyes opened to the sight of golden beetles, the size of one’s fingernail, crawling all over the chasm. They had started attacking the helpless critters viciously, clawing and biting chunks of flesh off their bodies.

There were more than tens of thousands of golden beetles, which made the scene all the more gruesome!

What surprised Grimm was that these beetles did not possess any special abilities to speak of. In comparison to the creatures swallowed up by the giant monster, they were much weaker and yet, these creatures were lying on the ground with defeated looks, allowing the swarm of golden beetles to feast on their flesh, turning the entire place into a bloodbath.

“What in the world is happening? No way… could it be that!?”

Grimm seemed to have detected something, his eyes filled with disbelief.

The Gadfly in his own body had been affected by some kind of blow, perhaps an attack by the insects’ spell. Or was it some kind of a deeply-rooted evil curse?

No wonder Grimm was taken aback so suddenly. Such attacks were if at all, rarely heard of, let alone encountered.

The gadflies within Grimm’s body had been cultivated over generations through selective breeding for two hundred years. After going through an evolution process by the Lightning Mirror in the Shadow Enigmatic World, they had attained the Mystic Forcefield ability. Then, after an additional century of careful cultivation by Grimm, his gadflies were now many times stronger than those found naturally in the wild.

And yet, at this moment, the gadfly within Grimm’s body had been caught off guard by an unidentifiable attack, crippling its powers.

Grimm stared at these golden beetles that were feasting greedily on the tiny creatures. The possibility of an idea sparked within him.

Could it be that…

Grimm’s body lit up into a tower of flames, driving away the golden beetles around him. He then made his way to the side of a small creature which was being devoured by a hungry pack of beetles, observing the all-you-can-eat buffet closely.

His eyes flickered underneath the Mask of Truth. Amidst the blood, flesh and beetles, Grimm could make out a thick, green-colored maggot from within the creature’s body.

Grimm walked over to the other creatures.

Similarly, they all had worms within them, but they were all unique to each creature. Whilst being consumed, these creatures did not seem to resist to the painful bites of the beetles.

Maybe, these golden beetles were the nemesis of these worms?

“This is a world controlled by parasites!?”

Grimm theorized from his observations.

It was not at all hard to explain. The reason why these creatures did not flinch as the golden beetles bit into them, was because they were under the parasites’ control. As these parasites were dealt with a weakening blow, so did the resistance of these creatures.

The situation was not the same for Grimm.

Although Grimm’s gadfly too, was capitulated to the same unknown attack, Grimm’s body largely remained the same. Well, apart from him losing his Mystic Forcefield spell casting abilities.

This was the essential difference between creatures that had evolved under two very different world laws.